Something that makes me spit feathers is that Mr Curtin - whom the Irish Sun newspaper calls 'a leading expert' - says that Tolkien based his book on Ireland, but had to tone down the Irishness so as not to upset the sensibilities of his predominently English readers. And that he'd admitted the irish connections later in life.

garm wrote:I believe the gent said he was studying at Oxford in the sixties, when he attended lectures by Tolkien. We know that JRR retired in 1959, but I've heard or read that he stood in for his successor now and again.

Interesting, so getting the book from Tolkien may also not be true.

"Oh what a tangled web we weave,When first we practise to deceive!"Sir Walter Scott, Marmion, Canto vi. Stanza 17.

garm wrote:Something that makes me spit feathers is that Mr Curtin - whom the Irish Sun newspaper calls 'a leading expert' - says that Tolkien based his book on Ireland, but had to tone down the Irishness so as not to upset the sensibilities of his predominently English readers. And that he'd admitted the irish connections later in life.

Balls.

I agree, complete rubbish, you only need to do some cursory reading of Tolkien, Letters shows this quite well, to see this is wrong.

In one post, the Burren Tolkien Society repeat almost verbatim part of a letter which Tolkien wrote to his grandson about Ireland, as published in Scull & hammond Vol.II under 'Ireland'. They give the name of the grandson as 'George Christopher'. Despite the fact that the book they were copying from actually gives the correct name!

Edit: Page 431 of the Reader's Guide

Trotter

Posted on: 2013/5/3 11:47

Edited by Trotter on 2013/5/3 12:06:08Edited by Trotter on 2013/5/3 12:06:53

Oh, and Tolkien might have gotten the idea of Gollum from a cave in Ireland. Which he didn't visit till 1949. And The Hobbit was published in... 1933. I quote:

"For many years now there has been words written about the character of Gollum who appears in 'The Hobbit' book published in 1933 but whom I'm told only gets a more developed persona in 'The Lord of the Rings'.

The Burren is home to the largest cave system in Ireland... It comprises of 15 miles of underground passages. This entrance is called Pol na gColm (translated from the Irish as the Hole of Gollum). The 'Book of the Burren' by Ann Korff, says 'Gollum' in Irish means 'rock dove'.. Of course the other coincidence is that rock doves make a guttural sound, same as Gollum in the book. "